It certainly is clear that the New Testament puts an emphasis on the Christian’s responsibility to be a model of civil obedience. In Romans 13, Paul tells us that the powers that be are ordained by God. That doesn’t mean …Read More

This question brings to mind an experience I had early in my ministry. In fact, I’d only been ordained a few months and was teaching at a college. One church had a minister who was much loved by his congregation; …Read More

I think the New Testament does teach that the whole world is born into the consequences of a fallen nature because of the sin of Adam and Eve. The New Testament repeats this idea frequently—“that through the disobedience of one …Read More

There is no single view of evolution out there. We make one distinction, for example, between macroevolution and microevolution. Macroevolution claims that all of life evolved fortuitously from a single cell—one little pulsating cell of life made up of amino …Read More

First of all, we need to establish that it is the sovereign God who not only invites us but commands us to pray. Prayer is a duty, and as we perform that duty, one thing for sure is going to …Read More

One of the great crises in evangelical Christianity today is a lack of understanding about the person of Christ. Almost every time I watch Christian television, I hear one of the classical creeds of the Christian faith being denied blatantly, …Read More

The New Testament tells us that we are not to be conformed to this world but that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind (Rom. 12:2). Let’s look at those two words that are crucial to …Read More

God is saying not only that he is omnipotent, all powerful in and of himself but also that he is the fountainhead of all power and all authority in this world. And so the devil himself is subordinate and dependent …Read More

One of the great Christian classics is a devotional booklet written by Saint Thomas à Kempis called The Imitation of Christ. In that book he talks about the struggle that so many Christians have with habits that are sinful. He …Read More

There have been obvious conflicts between the scientific community and the religious community over certain points. Of course, the most notable dispute historically was the embarrassing episode of Galileo and the whole theory of whether the earth or the sun …Read More

Whenever you see spirit and flesh set side by side in a passage (“the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” or “the spirit wars against the flesh,” as Paul says here), we’re talking about, not the warfare between …Read More

No. If it did change the essence of our created humanity, then it would be improper to call ourselves human anymore. There are vast differences of opinion among denominations and religious groups and theologians as to the extent of damage …Read More

We have to be careful not to be guilty of what Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for—what I call the Red Sky Syndrome. If you recall, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because they had an ability to predict the weather. They could …Read More

I’m not sure I can explain the so-called Kübler-Ross phenomenon. There’s been a significant amount of research on this. I’ve heard reports saying that as many as 50 percent of those who have suffered clinical death and have been resuscitated …Read More

A lot of the debate over divorce has to do with the way we interpret and handle Jesus’ teaching on the subject. In Matthew’s Gospel, for example, the Pharisees come to Jesus for a decision and they are trying to …Read More